The Same Cloth

Chapter 36: A Father’s Inheritance

Catherine woke before the birds.

For a little while, she remained still beneath the blankets, listening to the familiar sounds of their room. Leo breathed slowly beside her. Beyond him, Celine shifted in her sleep, one hand resting near the cradle.

Noctis made a small, indignant noise.

Catherine smiled.

Then something moved through her awareness, and her smile faded.

Since Edran had begun teaching her, the world had acquired a shape she could understand without sight. Footsteps approached before they sounded. Falling objects left brief impressions of where they would land. Around the people she loved, moments gathered with a warmth and familiarity she had learned to recognize.

This morning, something disturbed those patterns.

She felt a hand settle against her cheek.

“You’re awake,” Leo murmured.

“So are you.”

“You stopped breathing properly.”

Catherine turned toward him. “You notice that?”

“I notice you.”

Her fingers closed around his wrist.

Yesterday, she had held the hand of a daughter who did not yet exist.

The memory still seemed too large to fit inside an ordinary morning. That young woman’s voice, her easy affection, the certainty with which she had called Leo father—all of it had followed Catherine into sleep.

But so had the warning from her older self.

Leo needed to become stronger.

“What is it?” he asked.

“I don’t know yet.”

His hand remained against her face.

“Then tell me what you do know.”

She hesitated.

“Something is approaching the valley.”

Leo’s breathing changed.

“An army?”

“No.”

“A beast?”

“I don’t think so.”

From the other side of the bed came Celine’s sleepy voice.

“If the two of you intend to have a frightening conversation before breakfast, I would appreciate being included.”

Leo turned.

Celine had pushed herself upright. Loose hair framed her face, and her expression sharpened as she looked at her sister.

Catherine reached across him.

Celine took her hand.

“It feels familiar,” Catherine said quietly. “That’s what frightens me.”

Breakfast continued because Elara insisted it should.

“Whatever is coming,” she declared, setting bread on the table, “you will face it with food in your stomachs.”

Marcus accepted his plate without argument.

Leo suspected his father-in-law had learned that lesson many years earlier.

Noctis lay in the crook of Celine’s arm, apparently unconcerned by threats to the valley. His attention rested on a lock of his mother’s hair, which he had captured with remarkable determination.

“You have an entire blanket,” Celine told him. “Why must you eat my hair?”

“He has discerning tastes,” Catherine said.

“He has your stubbornness.”

“Our stubbornness.”

Leo reached for the bread.

A tiny spark leaped from Noctis’s fingers.

The bread vanished from the basket and reappeared against the baby’s blanket.

Everyone stopped.

Noctis blinked at his prize.

Marcus slowly lowered his cup.

“Well,” he said. “That complicates keeping things out of reach.”

Celine removed the bread before her son could investigate further.

“No.”

Noctis stared at her.

“No,” she repeated, with the patience of someone preparing to say the word many thousands of times.

Elara leaned closer, openly delighted.

“He’s so clever.”

“Mother, he stole breakfast.”

“He’s curious.”

“If I did that,” Leo said, “you would hit my hand with a spoon.”

“You know better.”

For a few moments, laughter eased the tightness in his chest.

Then Tomas appeared in the doorway.

Seraphine stood behind him.

Neither elder smiled.

Marcus rose first.

“What happened?”

“One of the northern boundary stones has gone silent,” Tomas said.

Leo set down his cup.

“The Hollow?”

“We don’t know.”

Catherine’s fingers tightened around the edge of the table.

She had felt nothing break.

That troubled her more than a violent disturbance would have.

Edran entered behind the other elders, his staff making a soft sound against the floor.

His face turned toward her.

“You felt it.”

“Yes.”

“Tell me.”

Catherine searched for the right words.

“It’s like hearing someone walking through the house and recognizing the footsteps.” She swallowed. “Except you know that person cannot possibly be there.”

Tomas’s expression changed.

Leo noticed.

“What?”

The old man looked at him, then at the baby in Celine’s arms.

“We should examine the stone.”

By midmorning, the clan had begun preparing.

Marcus increased the patrols and sent word to the farms nearest the northern slopes. Families would spend the night within the walls until the elders understood the disturbance. Carts went out to collect those who needed help moving.

There was no shouting in the streets.

People had learned enough from the beast wave to recognize the difference between haste and panic.

At the school, lessons continued while supplies were carried into the lower rooms.

Leo watched two older students helping a little boy lift a basket of folded blankets.

One of them was Lance’s youngest son.

The boy looked up as Leo passed.

For an instant, uncertainty crossed his face.

“Do you need us on the wall?”

Leo stopped.

“I need you to help the teachers.”

“I can fight.”

“I know.”

The answer seemed to surprise him.

Leo nodded toward the basket.

“There are children here who will be less frightened if someone they know stays with them. That matters.”

The boy glanced back at the school doors.

Then he straightened.

“Yes, Patriarch.”

Leo continued toward the gate, carrying the exchange with him.

Lance had tried to destroy his family.

His son was helping protect it.

Whatever waited in the mountains, Leo would not allow it to take that choice away from the boy.

Celine joined him near the northern gate. Catherine walked at her side, one hand lightly resting against her sister’s arm.

Leo looked behind them.

“Noctis?”

“With Mother,” Celine said. “She has already informed three guards that they breathe too loudly.”

He almost smiled.

“You should stay with him.”

Celine stopped.

“Leo.”

He knew that tone.

“I’m not asking because I think you’re weak.”

“I know why you’re asking.”

Her hand settled against his chest.

“But he needs all three of us to understand what’s happening.”

Catherine nodded.

“And whatever I’m sensing may become clearer near the stone.”

Leo looked between them.

He remembered Celine learning to stand again, furious at legs that would not obey. Catherine choosing a life without sight because she refused to surrender what her power might allow her to protect.

He covered Celine’s hand with his own.

“We go together.”

The boundary stone stood beside a narrow stream above the northern farms.

It had been placed there when the elders strengthened the protections around the Hollow. Normally, pale lines glowed beneath its surface.

Now it was dull.

Tomas knelt beside it.

Seraphine examined the ground while Edran waited with Catherine.

Leo remained a few paces back.

Nothing had burned. The grass stood untouched. Water moved over the streambed with a sound that made the silence among them more noticeable.

“No impact,” Seraphine said.

Tomas ran two fingers along the stone.

“No forced breach.”

Celine frowned.

“Then why did it fail?”

The old man did not answer immediately.

Leo felt a faint prickling beneath his skin.

Lightning.

He stepped closer.

Tomas rose so quickly that Leo stopped.

“Don’t touch it.”

The command struck harder than a shout.

A thin white thread crawled through a crack in the stone.

Leo stared.

He knew that light.

He had called it into his own hands during training. He had seen it in dreams of his father.

True lightning.

“Tomas?”

The old man’s face had gone pale.

Seraphine moved to stand beside him.

“Tell us,” she said.

Tomas drew a slow breath.

“When we strengthened these protections, we made allowances for the powers we used in the work. Otherwise, our own techniques would strain the wards whenever we returned to maintain them.”

Leo looked at the dead stone.

“My lightning.”

“Yes.”

“So someone copied it?”

“Perhaps.”

But Tomas’s voice held none of the reassurance Leo wanted.

The old man took a small metal rod from his belt and touched it to the crack.

White light snapped along its length.

For a heartbeat, a branching pattern hung in the air.

Tomas recoiled.

The rod fell into the grass.

Leo had never seen him look that way.

Not during the assassins’ attack.

Not when the beast wave struck.

“What is it?”

Tomas stared at the fading light.

“I taught your father to shape that pattern.”

No one spoke.

The stream continued running.

Leo heard himself ask, “Could someone else learn it?”

“Yes,” Tomas said at once. “A pattern can be learned. This does not mean your father is alive.”

The speed of the answer told Leo that Tomas understood exactly where his thoughts had gone.

Then Seraphine crouched beside a patch of dry soil.

“There’s something else.”

She lifted a blackened fragment no larger than a fingernail.

It glowed red between her fingers.

Leo’s stomach tightened.

He recognized that warmth, too.

Seraphine looked up.

“Phoenix fire.”

Catherine’s grip closed around Edran’s sleeve.

The morning tilted.

For an instant, she stood somewhere else.

Heat pressed against her face.

Someone dragged a foot across stone.

A man laughed, but the sound broke halfway through, dissolving into a wet, choking breath.

Then a voice spoke.

“Again.”

Lightning struck.

Catherine gasped.

Edran caught her wrist.

“Here,” he said firmly. “Stay here.”

She felt the stream beside her. Celine’s hand on her shoulder. Leo approaching.

The vision loosened.

Catherine bent forward, breathing hard.

“What did you see?” Leo asked.

“Someone is hurting them.”

“Them?”

She pressed a hand over her mouth.

There had been two shapes.

Two sources of pain.

And behind them, someone who watched with satisfaction.

“I heard Silas.”

The name settled over the clearing.

Leo looked back at the stone.

His parents’ powers.

Silas.

The opened Hollow.

He could not yet fit the pieces together, but he could see enough to feel sick.

Celine took his hand before the lightning gathering around his fingers could grow.

“Look at me.”

He turned.

“We don’t know what he’s done,” she said. “We find out before we act.”

“He has something of theirs.”

“Yes.”

The simple agreement hurt more than comfort would have.

Catherine straightened.

“Leo, what I felt this morning wasn’t your parents coming home.”

He closed his eyes.

Some small, foolish part of him had needed to hear that.

Another part hated that it had.

Tomas retrieved the fallen rod with a folded cloth.

“We return,” he said. “We change the wards before nightfall.”

Leo opened his eyes.

“And then?”

The elder met his gaze.

“Then I teach you how to fight someone who carries your father’s lightning.”

Noctis was asleep when they returned.

Elara took one look at their faces and asked no questions until Celine had settled beside the cradle.

Marcus listened to the account in silence.

When Tomas finished, he rested both hands on the council table.

“Can you prevent another crossing?”

“We can remove the old allowances,” Seraphine said. “The wards will resist anyone who tries to pass through with those powers.”

“Including me,” Leo said.

“Yes.”

“Do it.”

Tomas nodded.

Edran turned toward Catherine.

“Your lessons will change as well. You must learn to withdraw from a vision before it draws you too deeply.”

“I could have learned more.”

“You could have lost awareness of everything around you while standing within reach of an enemy.”

Catherine lowered her head, then nodded.

Celine sat beside Leo, her shoulder touching his.

“What do you need from us?” she asked Tomas.

The elder studied them.

“Tomorrow, we begin training together.”

“We already do,” Leo said.

“You practice beside each other. You exchange attacks. You help one another recover.” Tomas folded the cloth around the rod. “Now you will learn to keep fighting when one of you is frightened, injured, or faced with something you cannot bear to strike.”

Leo looked down.

Tomas’s voice softened.

“I will not ask you to pretend this doesn’t hurt.”

That nearly undid him.

He had held himself steady all the way back to the compound. He had listened to preparations, approved patrols, answered questions.

Now he could barely speak.

“If he used them…”

Celine’s fingers threaded through his.

Across the table, Marcus waited without interrupting.

Leo swallowed.

“If he took something from their bodies, if he’s been keeping it all this time…”

Tomas came around the table.

He laid a hand on Leo’s shoulder.

“Then the shame belongs to him.”

Leo bowed his head.

For a moment, he was a boy again, trying to understand how the world could continue after his parents had left it.

Catherine moved close enough to rest her forehead against his temple.

They stayed that way until he could breathe properly.

That evening, Leo sat beside his son’s cradle.

The room smelled faintly of clean linen and the tea Elara had brought Celine. Outside, boots passed beneath the window as the guard changed.

Noctis opened his eyes.

“Hello,” Leo whispered.

The baby waved one hand.

Leo offered a finger and felt tiny fingers close around it.

A spark glimmered between them.

White lightning.

This time, Leo did not pull away.

He watched it fade against his skin.

Celine stood in the doorway with Catherine beside her. Neither interrupted.

“I barely remember some things,” Leo said quietly. “The sound of my father coming into a room. What my mother wore on ordinary days.”

His thumb brushed his son’s knuckles.

“But I remember being safe.”

Celine came to sit beside him.

“Then we’ll make sure he remembers that, too.”

Leo looked at the little hand holding his.

For much of the afternoon, every stirring of his power had brought the dead boundary stone back to mind.

Now Noctis yawned.

The sound was small and ridiculous, and something in Leo’s chest eased.

He bent and kissed his son’s forehead.

Behind him, Catherine went very still.

Far to the north, beyond the farms and the watchfires, she felt the unfamiliar footsteps again.

This time, they stopped.

Beneath the mountains, Lance struck the invisible barrier with a hand split by white light.

The passage threw him backward.

He landed heavily, claws scraping stone.

Darian stood behind him, fire leaking between his teeth.

Silas approached the mouth of the tunnel.

For a while, he examined the pale shimmer stretched across it.

Then he smiled.

“So,” he murmured. “They found the trace.”

Lance raised his head.

For one brief moment, there was enough of the man left in his ruined face to show hatred.

Silas watched him struggle to stand.

“Good. You still remember him.”

Deep within the Hollow, something shifted.

Silas’s smile disappeared.

From the darkness behind them came three slow knocks.

He turned.

The knocks came again.

And this time, something on the other side spoke his name.

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